Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads

Abstract Background Load carriage is common in a wide range of professions, but prolonged load carriage is associated with increased fatigue and overuse injuries. Exoskeletons could improve the quality of life of these professionals by reducing metabolic cost to combat fatigue and reducing muscle ac...

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Autores principales: Gwendolyn M. Bryan, Patrick W. Franks, Seungmoon Song, Ricardo Reyes, Meghan P. O’Donovan, Karen N. Gregorczyk, Steven H. Collins
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Publicado: BMC 2021
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:ba055b21c0ee48f4b3aa0798514849302021-11-14T12:39:20ZOptimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads10.1186/s12984-021-00955-81743-0003https://doaj.org/article/ba055b21c0ee48f4b3aa0798514849302021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1186/s12984-021-00955-8https://doaj.org/toc/1743-0003Abstract Background Load carriage is common in a wide range of professions, but prolonged load carriage is associated with increased fatigue and overuse injuries. Exoskeletons could improve the quality of life of these professionals by reducing metabolic cost to combat fatigue and reducing muscle activity to prevent injuries. Current exoskeletons have reduced the metabolic cost of loaded walking by up to 22% relative to walking in the device with no assistance when assisting one or two joints. Greater metabolic reductions may be possible with optimized assistance of the entire leg. Methods We used human-in the-loop optimization to optimize hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance with no additional load, a light load (15% of body weight), and a heavy load (30% of body weight) for three participants. All loads were applied through a weight vest with an attached waist belt. We measured metabolic cost, exoskeleton assistance, kinematics, and muscle activity. We performed Friedman’s tests to analyze trends across worn loads and paired t-tests to determine whether changes from the unassisted conditions to the assisted conditions were significant. Results Exoskeleton assistance reduced the metabolic cost of walking relative to walking in the device without assistance for all tested conditions. Exoskeleton assistance reduced the metabolic cost of walking by 48% with no load (p = 0.05), 41% with the light load (p = 0.01), and 43% with the heavy load (p = 0.04). The smaller metabolic reduction with the light load may be due to insufficient participant training or lack of optimizer convergence. The total applied positive power was similar for all tested conditions, and the positive knee power decreased slightly as load increased. Optimized torque timing parameters were consistent across participants and load conditions while optimized magnitude parameters varied. Conclusions Whole-leg exoskeleton assistance can reduce the metabolic cost of walking while carrying a range of loads. The consistent optimized timing parameters across participants and conditions suggest that metabolic cost reductions are sensitive to torque timing. The variable torque magnitude parameters could imply that torque magnitude should be customized to the individual, or that there is a range of useful torque magnitudes. Future work should test whether applying the load to the exoskeleton rather than the person’s torso results in larger benefits.Gwendolyn M. BryanPatrick W. FranksSeungmoon SongRicardo ReyesMeghan P. O’DonovanKaren N. GregorczykSteven H. CollinsBMCarticleExoskeletonAugmentationLoad-carriageHuman-in-the-loop optimizationNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. NeuropsychiatryRC321-571ENJournal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, Vol 18, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Exoskeleton
Augmentation
Load-carriage
Human-in-the-loop optimization
Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
RC321-571
spellingShingle Exoskeleton
Augmentation
Load-carriage
Human-in-the-loop optimization
Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
RC321-571
Gwendolyn M. Bryan
Patrick W. Franks
Seungmoon Song
Ricardo Reyes
Meghan P. O’Donovan
Karen N. Gregorczyk
Steven H. Collins
Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
description Abstract Background Load carriage is common in a wide range of professions, but prolonged load carriage is associated with increased fatigue and overuse injuries. Exoskeletons could improve the quality of life of these professionals by reducing metabolic cost to combat fatigue and reducing muscle activity to prevent injuries. Current exoskeletons have reduced the metabolic cost of loaded walking by up to 22% relative to walking in the device with no assistance when assisting one or two joints. Greater metabolic reductions may be possible with optimized assistance of the entire leg. Methods We used human-in the-loop optimization to optimize hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance with no additional load, a light load (15% of body weight), and a heavy load (30% of body weight) for three participants. All loads were applied through a weight vest with an attached waist belt. We measured metabolic cost, exoskeleton assistance, kinematics, and muscle activity. We performed Friedman’s tests to analyze trends across worn loads and paired t-tests to determine whether changes from the unassisted conditions to the assisted conditions were significant. Results Exoskeleton assistance reduced the metabolic cost of walking relative to walking in the device without assistance for all tested conditions. Exoskeleton assistance reduced the metabolic cost of walking by 48% with no load (p = 0.05), 41% with the light load (p = 0.01), and 43% with the heavy load (p = 0.04). The smaller metabolic reduction with the light load may be due to insufficient participant training or lack of optimizer convergence. The total applied positive power was similar for all tested conditions, and the positive knee power decreased slightly as load increased. Optimized torque timing parameters were consistent across participants and load conditions while optimized magnitude parameters varied. Conclusions Whole-leg exoskeleton assistance can reduce the metabolic cost of walking while carrying a range of loads. The consistent optimized timing parameters across participants and conditions suggest that metabolic cost reductions are sensitive to torque timing. The variable torque magnitude parameters could imply that torque magnitude should be customized to the individual, or that there is a range of useful torque magnitudes. Future work should test whether applying the load to the exoskeleton rather than the person’s torso results in larger benefits.
format article
author Gwendolyn M. Bryan
Patrick W. Franks
Seungmoon Song
Ricardo Reyes
Meghan P. O’Donovan
Karen N. Gregorczyk
Steven H. Collins
author_facet Gwendolyn M. Bryan
Patrick W. Franks
Seungmoon Song
Ricardo Reyes
Meghan P. O’Donovan
Karen N. Gregorczyk
Steven H. Collins
author_sort Gwendolyn M. Bryan
title Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
title_short Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
title_full Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
title_fullStr Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
title_full_unstemmed Optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
title_sort optimized hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton assistance reduces the metabolic cost of walking with worn loads
publisher BMC
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/ba055b21c0ee48f4b3aa079851484930
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